Tokens of Appreciation
by The Quote Bandit
Summary: Taking care of a comatose angel ended up being the easiest job Meg had ever had. Well, until said angel decided to wake up. After that, not so much.


**A bit of head canon from pre 7x21.**

**As a note: crazy!Castiel is always going to be the greatest thing ever. It only gets better when you have Meg being _nice._**

* * *

The second Meg's little treehopper woke up, he didn't stop.

It was a hassle really. Before her job was easy: come to work, pretend to feed the angel, pretend to take care of the angel, catch up on her magazines, pretend to go home, pop back in with some gum and a new magazine, and continue to pretend to watch the angel. Rinse. Lather. Repeat. After thousands of years of living and working in Hell, she was living the good life.

That is, until he had to go wake up.

After that, after she made the call to the Winchesters, he would not shut up. If he wasn't babbling about events that happened before even Meg's time, he was reciting horrible poetry to her, or asking her if she remembered this or that (which she did not, and would he please just shut up already?). So different from the dangerous and righteous (but all sorts of sexy) Angel of the Lord with a capital A and L. It disgusted her. She never thought she would say this, but Meg couldn't wait to see the Winchesters so they could just take him already. She couldn't deal with this.

And then, one day, he disappeared. Poof. Not weird for an angel, but hell of weird for a recently-comatose human. Explaining that to her fake boss was a mess and a half. It was a good thing she didn't actually care about her job, because if she did she'd be worried about it. The staff spent a better part of the day searching the grounds for any sign of a hyperactive featherbrain, but to no avail. Meg took part of the search as well (had to keep her cover, after all), but she didn't try very hard. He was an angel. Escape for him could mean anything from being in town to being in Dubai. It wasn't as if he had anything tying him to this place; his boyfriends weren't around to put a leash on him, and he certainly wasn't going to stick around for her. No, she didn't expect to ever see him again.

The search long given up, Meg found herself back in Castiel's room. She didn't have any good reason. No better place to crash, she guessed. Stick around for the Winchesters to tell them the news. (This weird, foreign feeling nagging in the back of her head). Any of the reasons were as good as any, and it wasn't like the room was occupied (not anymore), so she put her feet up on the bed, leaned back against the pillows, and flipped the pages of stupid rags detailing the lives of unimportant celebrities.

"Meg."

Meg's eyes flicked up from the magazine and the side of her mouth pulled up into a smirk. A very sheepish angel, eyes cast down to the ground and hands awkwardly behind his back (obviously holding something), stood by the doorway. His feet shifted back and forth as if they weren't quite sure they were supposed to be there.

"Hey Clarence," she drawled. She dog-eared the page she was on and placed it next to her so her hands were free. "I wondered where you buzzed off to. Why'd you swing back? The service that good?"

Castiel apparently didn't know how to respond to that, so he just stood there, eyes not leaving his shoes. Hands still awkwardly held behind his back. Meg rolled her eyes. This version of Castiel was so exhausting.

"Show me what you got there, Chief. Your lack of subtlety is killing me."

At this he glanced up for maybe five seconds before glancing back down and blushing profusely. He pulled a large parcel out from behind his back and shoved it in her lap before she could say no. "I-it's nothing much really. You spent all that time watch watching over me, so I wanted to give you this as a token of my appreciation."

Meg almost shoved the thing out of her lap, but something stopped her (that feeling from earlier that she still couldn't put her finger on), and so she looked. It was a cake box, containing a small but ornately decorated cake with intertwining red and green rose borders and "Thank you" etched in red icing calligraphy so delicate and complex only an angel could have ever created something so pretentious. Just underneath she could see the corners of five magazines and, packed neatly in the corner, a dozen packs of bubblegum. The kind she used to go through like a crack addict before Castiel had started talking again.

It was so stupid, so sentimental, and yet at the same time he had obviously put so much time in effort into it, and it did something to her insides. That feeling was back, and this time she could put her finger on it. But it was something she hadn't felt in a long time, so long. She barely even remembered it.

She placed the cake next to her and slid off the bed, taking a few steps towards Castiel. He shuffled around a little more and looked up only when he thought she wasn't looking.

"Come over here for a second, Clarence," she said, a smile, genuine smile tugging at her lips. He finally looked up at her, looking for all the world like a terrified puppy expecting to get kicked. He didn't move any closer, just stayed rooted to the spot.

Meg took the final step to him, close enough to get in his personal space, to smell him. Angels always gave off this aura of purity, and this close to him she could feel the sting of his holiness etching itself onto her skin. She shivered. It reminded her of that time back in Crowley's hole, when her entire body had been enveloped in it. Or that time in the ring of fire. Back when he was still righteous and full of wrath. Back when he could kill her without even blinking.

It was still there, she realized. That almighty being was still there, still wrapped in that little tax accountant vessel; she could literally feel that power scratching on her borrowed skin and trying to tear her out. He was still her Castiel, the one who threw her on the fire, who shoved her against the wall. He was just...in over his head is all.

"You're a little lost, aren't you, Castiel?" she said finally, absentmindedly smoothing a wrinkle in his white scrubs. He tilted his head to look down at her, cocking his head to the side as he watched, and Meg was distinctly aware of the fact that they were within kissing distance.

"I-," he started. "I was. Sam Winchester's madness...was very confusing. But I think now," he paused, smiling, for the first time all day. "I think I'm where I need to be now."

Her lips quirked up, and she knew what to do from here. She leaned forward on her toes and kissed him. Nothing dramatic, just a quick press of lips. Very chaste. Damn, it's been decades, centuries maybe, since she's done something /chaste./ He stared her, like he'd never seen her before, but the red popping up on his cheeks counted as a win in Meg's book. She smiled again, another genuine one. A weird day.

"Then stay as long as you like," she said finally. Castiel opened his mouth, but nothing intelligible came out, so she grinned and patted him on the chest before pulling away. The angelic static crawling over her reluctantly allowed her to leave. Her skin tingled in its absence.

"Thanks for the cake," she said, flopping back on the bed and grabbing her magazine from the pillow.

Castiel, after a moment's hesitation, followed.


End file.
